This Is How You Raise a Genius

My Two Geniuses & One Not-So-Smart DogSince every time I read a new study it basically tells me what I'm doing wrong as a parent, imagine my relief when I stumbled upon The Daily Beast article, "15 Signs You'll Raise a Genius." It appears, based on this article, that my kids are totally going to be geniuses. My work here is done. Moving on! Next stop, raising kids who never get allergies, cancer, or put their foot in their mouth. Surely there's a list for those things that I could simply check off and move along to that Pilates class I've always been meaning to take but don't have enough time given the focus on my children.

Just so I know what kind of company I'm in here, are you doing all of these things to make sure your child is a genius?

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Does your home contain 500 books or more? Did you breastfeed "consistently" for one year? (Note to self: Do I knock off IQ points for every month shy of a year? Or just believe that four months and no TV in the nursery have me covered?) I totally didn't use cocaine while pregnant or nursing, did you? No? Then you're off to the right start -- kid genius-wise. You're also following up your child's day in pre-school with mommy and me yoga classes, right? Great. That's absolutely on par with not doing cocaine. Good job!

Now let's talk about your husband/partner. Was he 20 years old when your baby was born? What? Your pregnancy was planned? Whoopsie! Let's all just hope that our 30-year-old men didn't damage our baby's brain cells too much. Also, let's make sure you're not on welfare since your 20-year-old husband may have been too busy to finish college or trade school. Because that is a negative for your child's brain.

All of this is to say, what the hell? No one can possibly hit all 15 of these "signs" to make sure they are a genius. And if they do, but their child got the "dumb" genes in the family, then you're still out of luck.

Listen, I know the goal isn't to find a 19-year-old to impregnate you, or to quit your job so you can exclusively nurse for one year. These are simply signs that your child could have an advantage in the genius department. So, okay. I took the quiz and we're doing pretty well. I mean, seriously, I didn't do cocaine once during my pregnancy.